The battle over untraceable guns
By SARAH
OKESON
The
federal lawsuit filed in North Dakota by Morehouse
Enterprises, gun owner Eliezer Jimenez and the prosecutors asks a judge to
declare the rule unlawful and issue an injunction prohibiting the ATF from
enforcing it.
“The
legal tests on which the final rule relies have been resoundingly rejected by
the court,” attorneys for the gun dealer wrote.
The rule, which is scheduled to become effective Aug.
24, would require manufacturers of kits to build guns to be licensed. It would
also require them to put serial marks on the weapons and keep records of who
buys the kits and would make the kits firearms under the Gun Control Act.
Guns
made from kits are called “ghost guns” because they don’t have serial numbers
used to trace them. Police found 45,240 suspected ghost guns at potential crime
scenes from 2016 through 2021, including 692 homicides or suspected homicides.
In June, the Supreme Court threw out the two-part test that federal and state courts have used since a 2008 Supreme Court decision to reject most Second Amendment arguments of gun rights activists.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the 6-3 decision that relying on history is a “more
legitimate” way to make a ruling, especially given a “lack [of] expertise” by
judges about firearms.
Trump’s
three NRA-approved judges all voted to throw out a 111-year-old New York law
that limited who can carry guns on the streets.
Jake Charles, the former executive director of
the Duke
Center for Firearms Law, said the Supreme Court decision will
have a huge impact.
“The
court changed the entire standard for evaluating Second
Amendment claims,” Charles said.
Sarah
Okeson is correspondent for DCReport, reporting on the environment,
gun control and the COVID pandemic. She is a former staff reporter for the
Springfield News-Leader, Joplin Global and Florida Today ; and her work has
also been featured by Salon, Miami Herald, Washington Times, Barons and more.